Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt / Demanding His Desert Queen. Annie West

His quick mind calculated the cost of such an event. The room hire, the staff, the overpriced and frankly unpalatable alcohol being served, all of it would fund a thousand small businesses well into the next year, a fact probably not even considered by the birthday girl’s family.

      After he’d spent the first few years of his adult life weighing up every single decision, every single purchase, his ability to price almost anything was ingrained. Deeply. From the moment he had returned to Greece with his mother after his expulsion from school, the shame he had brought to the family who had funded his education there, the termination of his mother’s employment, and the return to the people who had rejected them both ever since his conception…he had never lost the taste of bitterness in his mouth, no matter how rich, sweet or satisfying the grape or wine he produced.

      After initial notoriety as the young vintner shocking the international wine industry—and his mother’s family—with the incredible popularity of his Greek blended wine, he had proved himself time and time again. And despite the almost constant criticism proclaiming his success as a flash in the pan—as if it hadn’t taken blood, sweat, his mother’s tears—even after eight years in the profession, he was still seen as the most upsetting thing to happen in the wine world since the invention of screw-top caps. That he’d dared to produce an award-winning blended wine rather than that of a pure grape somehow suited his own illegitimate status. That he persevered with blended wines seemed only to infuriate the old-school vintners who sniffed and huffed as he dominated the market, proclaiming him a young upstart. He didn’t feel young. Especially as he cast a frowning glance around the fancy frippery of the masked ball in Paris. No. He just felt jaded.

      None of these people would have given him the time of day before he’d found his success, and Theo now returned the favour, ignoring the lascivious glances cast his way. Instead of firing his blood, they only turned him cold. If he was honest, not since he was seventeen had he felt the heat of passion truly stir. Desire? Yes. The arousal of attraction? Of course. But never need. Never passion. And he fiercely reminded himself that he liked it that way. Because the last time he had felt that had heralded the destruction of every hope and dream he and his mother had ever held.

      And now he was on the brink of facing his demon, he had to remind himself that he was not a monster. That he was not as cruel as she had been. As if sensing his resolve, Sebastian turned to him with a raised eyebrow in query.

      ‘I will give her one chance,’ Theo said, forcing his eyes back to the ballroom, back to his prey. ‘If she apologises for what she did, then I will walk away, no harm, no foul.’ But if she didn’t, then Sofia de Loria would rue the day she had crossed him and finally learn the consequences of her actions.

       CHAPTER TWO

      AS SOFIA STEPPED away from the second of the would-be suitors with a resigned smile, she realised that she was losing hope. Neither he nor the first were right and she couldn’t help but feel that she was expecting the impossible. She was the worst Goldilocks ever. But as much as she didn’t want to rush into another marriage, she didn’t have a choice.

      She hung back around the edges of the grand ballroom, thankful that she was hidden amongst the crowds of people watching the figures making their way round the dance floor. She had dismissed her personal assistant in order to speak to the suitors alone, and relished the opportunity for the closest thing to anonymity she’d experienced in almost ten years. The fine golden leaf-like swirls of her mask tickled at the edges of her hair, but she would take that minor discomfort for the concealment it offered. It swept upward, asymmetrically, to one side, and matched the colour of her dress perfectly.

      Sofia bit back a laugh as she imagined for a moment that this would be how a wallflower, found between the pages of some historical romance, felt. Both terrified and hopeful of being plucked from obscurity to dance beneath the candlelit chandeliers by the handsome prince. But hers wasn’t that kind of story. No, she was the royal and it seemed that the second sons, or cousins—like the two previous candidates who had seemed so fine on paper—had quite definitive ideas about their place within her royal office.

      She had never wanted it. Not in truth. As a child, she had hardly been perfect princess material. Her parents had despaired and sent her to boarding school, tired of having to bribe the Iondorran press to silence yet another social faux pas on their daughter’s behalf. For security reasons they had all agreed to keep her royal status a secret. But for Sofia it hadn’t been about a desire for protection, it had been her last attempt for something normal, to be treated like anyone else. But ultimately that had backfired in the most spectacularly painful way.

      She became aware of the feeling of someone watching her. As a princess, she was reluctantly familiar with the sensation, but this was different. This felt different. The hairs on her arms lifted beneath the unseen gaze, and her pulse picked up at her neck almost painfully. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow being sought out…hunted.

      She cast a glance around the room to see if she could identify the source. A sea of vivid masks and incredible costumes greeted her, and she caught herself in the unconscious protective movement she hated as her hand went to soothe the phantom sensitivity at her ribs caused by that awful night a year and a half ago.

      She was surrounded by people, all engaged in conversations, bodies pressed closer together by the illicit nature given to the mass by the disguise of masks and costumes, but none seemed to be looking her way.

      Discarding the feeling as foolish, much like her earlier impression that somehow her life was going to change irrevocably, she searched for Angelique, who had gone to locate her final suitor, but saw no sign of either of them. As the orchestra picked up the threads of a familiar waltz a feeling of nostalgia swept over her.

      She could only hold out hope for this final suitor, because without him her country would be left vulnerable and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow that to happen.

      It was not her father’s fault that he’d been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. But she couldn’t help but feel responsible that she hadn’t been ready to assume royal duties earlier to prevent the extreme financial loss her country had experienced under his unstable reign. Feel embarrassed that she had been so carefree and reckless as to need two years of strong, mindful guardianship to ensure that she wouldn’t bring further damage to Iondorra as every wilful, mindless frippery was ironed out of her character. Feel that sense of guilt that the necessary secrecy of her father’s ill health had continued for so long…the silence almost as painful as the disease itself. For surely if she had been a better princess, a better ruler, they wouldn’t have had to indulge in this secrecy?

      She thought of her mother, tucked away in the privacy of the smaller holdings of the royal family in Iondorra, imprisoned with her husband and a handful of staff and medical professionals ready to manage and care for whatever latest outpouring of anger, frustration or confusion her father experienced almost daily now.

      She knew she needed to accept the grief at the loss of a man who had once been a loving father and a fantastic ruler, but she just couldn’t. She had grown to almost resent the days of coherence as much as the ones where all semblance of his sanity was lost. They were the ones that she hated most. When she saw her father once again as the man who had loved her, laughed with her, despite the strict requirements he needed her to adhere to. Of course, that was before the diagnosis and her sudden and shocking departure from the international boarding school. Ever since then her life had become one solely of duty.

      A waiter paused by her side, offering her a glass of prosecco. She knew that she needed to keep a clear head for this evening, but she couldn’t help but clasp the fine glass stem, relishing the cool liquid as it fizzed and bubbled on her tongue.

      She was just about to leave the confines of the crowd around her when the hairs on her neck lifted once again and she felt enveloped by the warmth from a body close behind her. Shocked at the proximity of the unseen figure, she breathed in, ready to turn, when the musky, earthy scent of cologne hit her and held her still. It was unfamiliar